Independent Baseball Chatter – by Bob Wirz
The Kansas City Royals must be happy with their recent signing of Balbino Fuenmayor (Laredo 2013) because the corner infielder is not only putting up great numbers in Venezuela, but they look even more impressive when compared to Arizona outfielder David Peralta (Wichita 2012, Amarillo 2013), who made a big impact in his rookie season in the National League.
Fuenmayor has 10 homers and 38 runs batted in along with a .315 average in the 42 games he has played (45-for-143), while Peralta’s production is slightly lower in the same winter league. Peralta is at .319 with 32 RBI and only a pair of homers in 55 games (67-for-210).
Fuenmayor won both the home run (23) and RBI (99) titles in the Can-Am and was runner-up in average (.347). Peralta played almost every day after the Diamondbacks brought him up last season, hitting .286 with eight homers and 36 batted in for 88 games.
In other winter league play, free agent catcher Jose Gil (Lincoln 2013) is showing some offensive punch in the Dominican with .328-6-24 numbers for 37 appearances and American Association grad Ryan Searle (Grand Prairie 2014) continues to set the pace in strikeouts in Australia (56 in 48.2 innings) although his ERA, mostly in a starting role, is only at 4.25. Two other American Association hurlers have much better ERAs in the same league, Jason Jarvis (Lincoln 2008, Sioux City 2011-13, Winnipeg 2013-14, Grand Prairie 2014) is at 2.21 for 11 relief outings and Morgan Coombs (Gary 2012-14) has won six of seven decisions and has a 2.36 mark mostly as a starter.
